As Sphero continues its bid to become the industry leader in robotics and STEAM education, the Boulder-based company announced another strategic acquisition to further that mission.
Sphero announced that it has acquired New York City's littleBits, the company that invented the electronic building block, for an undisclosed fee.
LittleBits was founded in 2011 and is best known for its coding and STEAM kits that have been sold in over 70 countries.
With the addition of the littleBits line, Sphero will now feature a portfolio of over 140 patents in robotics, electronics, software and IoT.
“Sphero and littleBits are on a mission to make hands-on learning fun and memorable,” said Sphero CEO Paul Berberian in a statement. “Together, we’re able to make an even greater impact by delivering the best possible solution — whether it is programming a robot to solve a maze or building an electronic music synthesizer. There are infinite learning possibilities — and they’re all fun.”
Combined, the two companies have reached over 6 million students and 65,000 teachers across 35,000 schools globally — and have sold more than $500 million in Sphero robots and littleBits kits.
“When I studied engineering, it was top down, test-based,” said Ayah Bdeir, founder of littleBits. “I hated it and wanted to quit every semester. Then I got exposed to the pedagogy of learning through play and my life changed; no one could peel me away from learning, inventing, creating. Together, littleBits and Sphero are now bringing this experience to kids everywhere.”
With the acquisition, Bdeir will leave littleBits to "pursue her next adventure," the company said in a release.
This move follows Sphero's June acquisition of Specdrums, musical, app-enabled rings that allow children to create and play music by using colors on a variety of surfaces as their instruments.
Specdrums was formed by University of Colorado Boulder students in 2017 and was acquired by Sphero for an undisclosed fee.
In a release, Sphero said it will continue its recent acquisition push to accelerate international growth and further expand its portfolio of STEAM products and tools. The company will have offices in Boulder, New York and Hong Kong.
